


Magical Accidents

by ilyena_sylph



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 21:34:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1319968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Deathstroke's cases and the Titans' problems don't run so far apart. ...That generally doesn't end well. But then, sometimes it does, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magical Accidents

**Author's Note:**

> Continuity: It's me, come on. Graduation Day? What Graduation Day? Or, roughly translated, late in The Titans. Also, post BoP 25 at least, if not 46.

It'd been... god, it was so easy to lose track of time. But quite a while, at least, since the Titans had last seen Slade Wilson, and that hadn't gone all that well. So Nightwing was fairly surprised when he showed up basically on top of one of their cases, Wintergreen behind him. Wintergreen surprised him more than anything else. He hadn't seen the older man any of the times Slade had shown up around the Haven or Gotham, but there he was. Older, a little thinner, but still pretty strong, and just as dangerous as Slade was. Given how things had gone the last time they'd run together, Dick was fairly sure that only the fact that Kory was back on Tamaran, dealing with some kind of political crisis she'd trailed off into her own language about while packing, had brought him even this close to them. 

...Then again, maybe not, he decided as he listened to Slade filling them in on why he was there, voice set in that low, dangerous professional growl. Garth had been saying for over a week that something awful was going on in the city, something that made his magical senses shriek. With Slade on the trail of a couple of missing kids -- kids whose parents had the kind of money it took to get Deathstroke's attention (he was slighting Slade, there, he knew. Kids were one of the places Slade would damn near work for free, if he heard about the job) -- that he said had gotten tied up in the occult, right on top of them as the looked for whatever was setting Garth off... No real surprise that he'd do whatever it took, even showing up to them as a team, if it meant getting the kids back safe. 

He nodded as Slade wrapped up what he knew. "Almost has to be tied to what we're looking for. Garth?" 

Garth nodded, looking a little green around the... heh, gills. "If whatever mage has got kids tied up in this, that would give it this feeling -- I wish the JSA wasn't tied down. Fate's better at this than I am."

"Wishes were horses, we'd all be neck-deep in shit, Tempest," Slade retorted, his jaw tight under the cloth of the mask. "We managed to track the kids this far."

"I'll find them, Slade. You gave me names, after all. That'll help," Garth shifted, letting his arm settle against Slade's. Dick nodded, letting Garth -- and Gar, who jumped up onto his shoulder in feline form and pressed a nose to his jaw -- handle settling Slade down. He had some ruffled teammates to settle. Mostly the kids that had never known the man Slade could be, just had that run-in with Deathstroke when none of them were having anything resembling a good day. 

Once Garth had a better location for them, they'd move. 

****

"Goddamnit, Tempest!" 

"Shove it!" Tempest yelled back at whichever of his teammates was cussing him as he called up another spell, trying to guard them all from the magical attack slamming in. Blood magic reeked in his magical senses, while the stink of decaying blood came off the "altar" up on the dais of the underground lair //What, how many of these things _are_ there in NYC, dozens?//, and the screams of the frightened kids just added to the chaos as his team moved around him, trying to deal with members of the cult they'd found. 

"Anyone gonna be surprised if this is Blood's work?" he heard Arsenal growl from behind him as the bow twanged again and again, fast as he could get the shots off and put people down. 

"No," came from Nightwing, Deathstroke, and Troia all at once -- though Slade and Wintergreen had gotten way the hell away from them, going straight for the kids that were his objective. Garth was completely okay with that, as the sooner they got the kids out of there, the better off everybody was going to be. He just had to keep them co -- 

//SHIT!// He whipped his hand around, throwing a barrier between them and that next spell... and groaned as he felt part of the blast get through. Slade looked okay, untouched, even, but -- //He's going to lose his mind if Wintergreen's hurt,// Garth knew damn well. And it didn't look so great from here, given the way the older man had fallen... 

Slade spun, dropping to a knee -- and in the next moment the pistol from his hip was up in a blur of motion, another half a second of that speed to turn and sight and the gunshot echoed in his ears as Slade put rounds through their problem mage's shoulders and a knee. A part of him was amazed by the restraint, until he heard the screams. //Well... dead she couldn't fix whatever happened,// he realized and took off to get to her and get her magically bound before she could concentrate past the pain. 

Bound ... and unconscious, he realized once he was done, including making sure that she wasn't going to bleed out before they got here out of there. That taken care of, he turned to jog back towards Slade and Wintergreen, his eyes worried as he checked for the rest of his team. Troia was dealing with a couple more people, Nightwing and Argent were rounding up cultists, and Vic, Damage, and Arsenal were splitting off to check out the rest of the complex. //Whe -- of course, with Slade,// Garth thought as he spotted the ferret crouched on Deathstroke's shoulder, looking down. He reached them... and froze in shock as he processed what he was seeing. 

"I... Wintergreen?" It had to be, but -- Wintergreen had never looked that young in all the time he'd known them. In the time any of them had. He'd seen some of Joe's old pictures of before his parents' divorce, and even in those Wintergreen had been heading towards the white-haired older man he knew. This -- the man still trying to get his breath and get up -- was... maybe late forties? Still with some of the blond in his hair, and damned fit for a surface-worlder, clothes fitting too tightly across his body.

"Yes." 

"Tempest?" Slade questioned, his eye dark behind the lens as he crouched there beside the man Garth knew was his oldest friend. 

"What, Slade? I just tried to protect you two, I didn't _do_ anything, and I don't know what the spell was." 

"Well, unlike _some_ people, no matter what has happened," Wintergreen was studying one of his hands intently. "I know precisely who, where, and when I am," the familiar British voice snapped with irritated strength. "So one of you lend me a hand, and let us get those children and all get out of this hell-hole, shall we?" 

Garth just knew his ears were failing him, because as Slade dropped Gar off his shoulder and dipped down to help Wintergreen reach his feet, he thought he heard a low... What the hell was that? It barely sounded like Slade's voice, and if he'd heard it right, something like 'yessuh'... He had to be wrong. Just like he had to be wrong about the way that looked like guilt written in the lines of Slade's shoulders under the mail. Even if he wasn't wrong, he didn't want to know why. 

They got the kids out and up to the streets, and he could hear 'Wing calling the police in. The minute he stopped talking, Slade flipped a slim phone out to make a couple of calls. It sounded like calls to the parents, from what he could hear as he worked on making sure none of the magic from down there was left on the living kids. 

Slade's head turned, and Garth listened, picking up the faint sound of the sirens. He looked over at 'Wing then and called, "Kid. See you around." 

"See you," Dick called back and he and Wintergreen took off, sirens getting louder with every step they took until they vanished around a corner just before the cops came around another.

It was a relief when they could hand the kids and the cultists over to people that could probably handle them better, though they weren't taking any chances with the mage. She was going straight to one of the meta prisons with medical facilities, now that everyone else was taken care of; or at least, all of the living were. 

That change had felt pretty stable, too, not like it was likely to revert back... Oh, that was going to get interesting.


End file.
